Modern retail processes are becoming heavily data driven, and retailers therefore have a strong interest in numerous customer and store metrics such as queue lengths, experience time in-store and drive-through, specific order timing, order accuracy, and customer response. Measurement of customer volume in the retail space using surveillance cameras is currently unavailable or lacking in versatility. As a store or public space gets busy or there is an anomalous volume or flow of pedestrian traffic, the queue lengths will grow, customer wait times will increase, or other inefficiencies and problems will arise. The store or space manager should react to the anomalous person volume, and hence will need to be notified of the problem. Some potential reactions include repositioning employees, adding a cashier, increasing security, or some other remedy.
What is needed is a way of providing a manager with an automated indication of store and/or space busyness.